The Weekend Routine: Designer Lauren Hom

At TaskRabbit, we love the weekends. They may not be any less productive than hectic weekdays, but they have a different kind of pace and energy. In the Weekend Routine series, we take a look at how the people who inspire us use their weekends to find a balance between planning for the week ahead and taking a break from the daily grind.

We all tell harmless white lies like “I’ll be there in 5 minutes” or “just one more episode.” Lauren Hom has turned these all-too-relatable “lovely little lies” into a collection of hand-lettered illustrations on her blog Daily Dishonesties, which has become a bestselling book. Now a freelance letterer, illustrator, and graphic designer, Lauren spends her days creating playful, bright illustrations that make us laugh and double tap ‘like’ again and again.

When Lauren isn’t busy creating murals at Google (yes, she really did!) or teaching others how to make their passion projects into their business, she’s spending time with her boyfriend at their home in Detroit. Continue reading to find out how they’ve lived without a car for a year, her top weekend priority, and her “sacred” weekend hobby.

Living without a car. On Friday night, my boyfriend and I will either stay in and do wine and movie night or if it’s nice out, we will go for a bike ride and get dinner. Since we relocated from New York, we didn’t have cars, so we needed a home that was in a central area. We ended up not buying a car because we can use other services to supplement the “not having a car” lifestyle. If I need someone to pick something up for me or build something for me, I can hire someone to do that for me. So far, we’ve been able to live in Detroit for a year without one.

Farmer’s Market. There is a really fantastic farmer’s market here. I love shopping for produce and sifting through racks of fruits and veggies. It’s my happy place. We’ll go there in the morning and then grab lunch in the area.

No. 1 Weekend Priority. My number one priority is not checking email and not working. This is the one thing that stays constant during our weekends. We are both entrepreneurs and can pretty much work seven days a week. One thing we are trying to get better at is taking entire days off. Spending time together and with my friends and turning my work life off has become a necessity.

Making a House a Home. We furniture shop on the weekends. We moved here after a 1 ½ years spent backpacking around the world. We both sold all of our stuff before we left, so when we got here, we had to furnish our entire our apartment from scratch. Even though we’ve been here for 11 months, our home isn’t fully furnished yet. We’ll go hunt around at thrift stores and antique stores around town. We might even just sit on the couch together and look online together.

We have such different aesthetics that it has been hard to compromise sometimes. He likes the functional, minimalist look, but I want to live in a Bohemian treehouse. TaskRabbit has been so helpful for us for furniture assembly. I’ve hired so many Taskers for things that maybe we can do it ourselves, but it saves us a few hours and stress.

Trying New Places. On Sundays, we’ve been trying to find new places to try near our neighborhood. There is a new hotel that just opened up downtown with an all pink, vintage bar, Candybar. We just tried that recently and had a great time!

Get Crafty. On the weekends I try to do crafty, creative things that aren’t tied to my business. Even though I am an illustrator and a graphic designer, there are some things you just want to keep for yourself; it keeps them sort of sacred.

My assistant asked me a great question recently: When was the last time you made something and you didn’t post about it? I honestly didn’t have a good answer. I feel like now that we can share anything, we have a tendency to want to. It’s not a bad thing, but just something I wasn’t conscious of.

Feeling inspired for the upcoming weekend? Whether you want more time to relax or you trying to get organized, book a Tasker to get a head start on the weekend.